fwiw, when I am caught with having to put wood in stove (need to be gone for a long time and it is cold outside) but there is still a good fire I most times simply put the wood in, close up and engage cat right away. No problem so long as you have dry wood. Amazing it was down to 75 when I got up, but that is being taken care of.
So potentially new problem Noticed what I thought was an excessive amount of smoke last night. So I removed cat this morning and cleaned it. Still having lots of smoke this morning after cleaning cat. For cleaning the cat all I did was blow it out with the air compressor. Running air at 1 notch above 1/4 open. Maybe 30 minutes after reload. Heard ticks and pinging that makes me think cat is lit. what say you fellers?
That's a bright white smoke on my screen- I'm pretty sure that's condensation coming out of the stove off the wood. I get that sometimes too, but not for a whole heck of a lot of time. I'd be tempted to let it run wide open a little bit longer before running the cat and cutting the air back. Maybe another 10 minutes or so, then engage the bypass and adjust the air flow to where you want it. That would be my approach, we'll see what some of the other guys thing is going on.
It does look like steam to me too, but I wasn’t completely sure. This white ash I’m burning isn’t the driest at an average of 18%
Yep its water vapor, get it here whens it's really cold, first time my new epa stove did that I thought i had a epa smoke dragon.
I do that occasionally if I'm going to be out for several hours. Hot loading will build up a lot of extra coals though
Oh yeah. You'll be high-stepping for no reason. Lol (If everything looks closer, you feel like you're walking uphill)
I am trying to use less dense wood for hot reloads, just put some elm and ash in stove, hope it helps when the excessive coling.
